My spouse is getting harassing calls because of my job

Stop answering unknown numbers.

Send everything to voicemail for the next 24 hours. Engaging — even to tell them off — confirms the number is live and books another round.

Start a call log right now.

A note on the phone is fine. Date, time, number that called, what was said, voicemail saved yes or no. Every call from this point forward goes in the log. The log is the evidence.

Save voicemails before they auto-delete.

Most carriers purge voicemails after 30 days. Use the carrier's save-to-cloud feature, or record the audio off the phone with another phone. Originals matter for any criminal charge later.

Call the carrier and request call blocking.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile all have free per-line blocking and spam-screen tools. Ask the rep specifically for "harassment-level" filtering, not just spam. They can also pull a call-detail record for the period in question.

Notify the spouse's workplace HR if calls are hitting work.

HR can route the office line to voicemail, screen front-desk transfers, and document each incident on the company side. Ask them to preserve their own call logs in case it goes to a report.

Tell your supervisor the calls are happening.

Your chain of command needs the heads-up the same hour. If the harassment is tied to a recent case, arrest, ruling, or news story, that is operational intel. The department or agency's threat-assessment liaison should be looped in.

File a police report in the spouse's jurisdiction.

Even if you are on the job yourself. Report goes in where the spouse received the calls, not where you work. Bring the call log and any saved voicemails. Get the case number.

Run a free scan on the spouse's name.

See the free scan. The scan tells you which broker pages currently list the spouse — name, phone, workplace, home address. That is where the caller pulled from.

Lock down the spouse's social media.

Set everything to private for the week. Pull profile photos of the kids, the house, the cars. Harassers escalate from calls to in-person searches when they hit a wall on the phone.

Start broker cleanup on the spouse and the household.

Removing the spouse's phone and workplace from broker pages is the upstream fix. Continuous coverage is the only version that actually holds — most brokers re-list within 3-6 months.

Change the spouse's phone number if calls continue.

A new number with the carrier is free. Port the old line to a Google Voice or similar so existing contacts can still reach you for a transition period, then retire the old number. Do not list the new one anywhere public.

For NJ residents, file Daniel's Law demands for the household.

See Daniel's Law. The law covers the spouse and minor children of covered personnel. $1,000 per violation in statutory damages per non-compliant broker.

Federal escalation if any call references violence.

Threats of bodily harm communicated by phone or interstate wire are federal crimes. The local FBI field office or the US Attorney's office is the right channel — bring the call log, voicemails, and the local police report.

Push for a TRO or harassment order if the caller is identified.

Once you have a name — from a number, a voicemail, or a pattern of calls tied to a known subject — local court can issue a no-contact order. Violation is its own arrestable offense.

Move the family temporarily if the address is exposed.

If the calls reference the home address or the kids' school, treat it like a sustained threat. A week with relatives or in a hotel breaks the surveillance window while broker cleanup catches up.

Continuous coverage on the whole household.

The spouse, the parents, the adult kids — same broker pages, same phone numbers, same risk. We re-check every two weeks across 200+ broker sites and re-file the same day anyone reappears.

Keep the spouse's number off everything public.

School emergency cards, sports rosters, neighborhood Facebook groups, church directories. All of those get scraped. Use a Google Voice forward for any context that does not strictly need the real number.

Treat workplace HR as a long-term ally.

Most HR departments will keep a flag on the spouse's file noting "no caller transfers without verification" if asked. One ten-minute conversation now saves a hundred screened calls later.